Well I have no data on it so unless someone prooves you wrong Ill go along with your numbers.
Oh our dear friend-lawyer wrote a whole a book again 
Nice mehtod to deny the “soviet uncorrect” archives datas and chenged it by the own speculative conclusions. It seems i hear it at one time early ?( may be during the cold war).
So mister lawyer who do know better russians archives the fate of former Germans POWs in Syberia?May be the “sources” which you so kindly give us ?
You sir don’t forget please if you will begin the pure scholastic demagogy and try to deny the russian archive datas and works of contemporary russian historians ( not the “sovets”) you will force us to doubt in your “sources” which mostly based on the theoretical suggestions.
Well here is i could agree with you Risin Sun the official figures of NKVD get us the prisoners of the camps or the points of unloading and sorting.
Without any doubts ther were a certain persentage of perished germanPOWs who died befor they had reach the camps.
The one of the high-death place of Germans pows was the Stalingrad. I read the tens thousands of pows perished during its way to the Syberia. The high-death rate was explaned firstly the NKVD had never experience of the escorting of SUCH quantity of pows (before the Stalingrad Red Army had naver cuptured so much the pows)
The Second reason was the soviet commans simply understimated the quantity of surrounded germans troops ( i read in the memours of general Chyikov - about "probably"100 000 - 150 000 , but indeed in the Stalingrad there were about 330 000 of axis soldiers )
The cupturing the 91 000 germans (and its allies POWs) created the new problems for the NKVD. The transporting them to the camps it appeard to be the poblem.
But later in the 1944-45 the deat-rate of escorting germans pows had a less scale.
I think in reality the average death-rate of Germans pows were about 16-18% overal since the 1943 -untill 1955 when the last group of about 10 000 of germans pows come back to the Germany.
Cheers.
I’m not denying anything about the Soviet archives. I’ve actually requested evidence from them, which those with the best access to them, being you and Egorka, are least willing to provide, preferring instead to present red herrings in response to my clear and simple suggestion.
Egorka asked me to explain my casual comment in detail.
I have done so.
I have provided the basis for my comment, providing independent sources rather than emulating Egorka by just repeating unsupported assertions as supposed evidence.
I have offered a representative case, being Stalingrad, as a test to indicate whether the sources which informed my comment or the Soviet records are likely to be correct.
As Egorka’s only response to my suggestion was to make a silly demand that I provide a precise figure when I had already explained why I can’t and won’t because of the different figures floating about, this suggests to me that he doesn’t have anything to back up his position and isn’t prepared to carry on in a rational fashion the rather trivial debate he started. Or that the Soviet archives contain embarrassing information about the Stalingrad POW’s.
Instead of you and Egorka carrying on pointlessly about the alleged accuracy and detail of the magnificent Soviet archives, why don’t either or both of you do what I originally suggested and get the information from them about Stalingrad to resolve this issue?
Hello!
So far the figures I have for the POW death rate look like on the picture.
The data for the source #5 will be added tomorrow.
Are these the relevant GUPVI records? (It could be a furniture catalogue for all I know. 
)
http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/
If so, does it have figures for the Stalingrad POW’s?
Thanks for those figures and sources.
Why are they 1939 - 56?
Germany and the USSR weren’t at war until June 1941, so there shouldn’t be any German POW’s in the USSR 1939-41.
And don’t please represent your “independent” source which claimed the 1.5 mln of killed germans pows.
It is generally believed that roughly 1.5 million German prisoners died in captivity in the Soviet Union, the vast majority between capture and arrival at “permanent” prisoner of war camps
Sorry Rising Sun but this is pure speculacy to establish the abstract conclusions.
I have offered a representative case, being Stalingrad, as a test to indicate whether the sources which informed my comment or the Soviet records are likely to be correct.
The Stalingrad was not the usial case of treatment of pows.
As i have mentioned in the Stalingrad the death-rate was more then the later in 1944-45 when the Red Army cuptured the MOST of the Germans pows.
Instead of you and Egorka carrying on pointlessly about the alleged accuracy and detail of the magnificent Soviet archives, why don’t either or both of you do what I originally suggested and get the information from them about Stalingrad to resolve this issue?
Don’t misunderstand me please.
But we have the very realible ( and plausible) reasons to conclude the figures of perisheg Germans pows was not “1.5 mln” but much less.
Oh nice dear Rising Sun.
Yea this is the links contains the official documents and reports to the Soviet gov about axis POWs in the USSR.
Good links, thanks.It’s amazing ,but how could you find it in russian?
Particulary the report of minister of state defence Kruglov reported:
http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/r9.pdf
From the 1945 till the nowadays ( i.e.1949) it were repatriated back to the homelands the 3 344 696 former axis pows.
This contains:
2 247 398 of Germans pows
581 289 - Japanes
329 093 - Hungarians
106 769 -Romanians
21 097 - Italians
1 969 - finns
57 111 - of differents slavs pows who colloborated with germans
…
This datas could be used as realible enough i think becouse this was the report to the Stalin.( not for public soviet propoganda)
So how many were cuptured the Germans POWs by the Red Army till the 1945 if you suggest that 1.5 million of Germans pows died in the way to the camp?
This was a mistake. This graph means the Axis pows (not the Germans) . The first axis pows had bacome in the USSR in 1938 indeed. It was the cuptured japanes soldiers.
Why are they 1939 - 56?
Germany and the USSR weren’t at war until June 1941, so there shouldn’t be any German POW’s in the USSR 1939-41.
Rising Sun*,
It is because in some of the sources a number of German nationals and Folksdoiche that where taken POWs in Poland and Finland is included. I can not remember how many there were but not many, I would say several hundereds at best. Most of them were released to Germany before 22-June-1941 because German ambassy in USSR appealed for them.
This was a mistake. This graph means the Axis pows (not the Germans) . The first axis pows had bacome in the USSR in 1938 indeed. It was the cuptured japanes soldiers.
Chevan, the graph is ONLY for Germans nationals (i.e. Germans and Aurtrians).
Are these the relevant GUPVI records? (It could be a furniture catalogue for all I know. )
http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/
The conclusion from this book (link) is my source #5, the documents from this book is my source #1.
Egorka has already pointed out that his graph is for German POW’s only, which confirms my reading of it
I’d just add that any Japanese prisoners from the 1937 - 39 Russo-Japanese engagements were just Japanese prisoners. Japan didn’t sign the Tripartite Pact and join the Axis until September 1940. Unless many were captured in border incidents after that date, the USSR didn’t capture any more Japanese in substantial numbers until August 1945.
Thanks. That’s okay with me.
The conclusion from this book (link) is my source #5, the documents from this book is my source #1.
Thanks. Have you been able to find anything on the way POW’s were counted? That is, were they counted only when they reached permanent camps? The main area of dispute between us is the the total number of German POW’s, which would be much higher than Soviet records show if they include only the ones who reached permanent camps.
I’d love to tell you, but it’s a State secret.
So how many were cuptured the Germans POWs by the Red Army till the 1945 if you suggest that 1.5 million of Germans pows died in the way to the camp?
Without going back over my posts, I think I said that there seem to be about 1m Germans unaccounted for. The lowest estimate I have seen is 500,000 (notice how these numbers are always nice round figures).
The whole problem is that I doubt that there is any definite source that can say how many Germans were captured on the battlefiled and sent towards permanent Soviet camps and how many of those captured were recorded as POW’s before reaching the camps.
If I could find and read GUPVI documents, including their administrative instructions for when prisoners were recorded, and if I knew more about how the GUPVI worked in the field, I’d be in a better position to get some idea of how reliable the Soviet records are.
Without going back over my posts, I think I said that there seem to be about 1m Germans unaccounted for. The lowest estimate I have seen is 500,000 (notice how these numbers are always nice round figures).
The whole problem is that I doubt that there is any definite source that can say how many Germans were captured on the battlefiled and sent towards permanent Soviet camps and how many of those captured were recorded as POW’s before reaching the camps.
If I could find and read GUPVI documents, including their administrative instructions for when prisoners were recorded, and if I knew more about how the GUPVI worked in the field, I’d be in a better position to get some idea of how reliable the Soviet records are.
Dear Rising Sun if you will have the any non-soviet ( or no-russian) archives datas about germans pows in the USSR, you please firstly inform us about
Thanks. Have you been able to find anything on the way POW’s were counted? That is, were they counted only when they reached permanent camps? The main area of dispute between us is the the total number of German POW’s, which would be much higher than Soviet records show if they include only the ones who reached permanent camps.
Thanks. Have you been able to find anything on the way POW’s were counted? That is, were they counted only when they reached permanent camps? The main area of dispute between us is the the total number of German POW’s, which would be much higher than Soviet records show if they include only the ones who reached permanent camps.
Here is the extract from “POW in USSR, 1939 - 1956” ( http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/ ). On the page 30 of the introduction it says:
1st of March Lavrentii Beria signed the order # 00398 “About the transportation of POW from the camps and admitance points located in the front line zone” (comment: see document 2.12 (page 30) at address http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/r2-1.pdf ). According to this order from 01-March-1943, 110.500 POW, including 78.500 POW from Stalingrad were ordered to be relocated to the rear. But the order was signed to late. Until 1st of March many of the POWs already died, the health of others inevitably affected. As the result of the order, only 27.295 POW were relocated, from the areas of Voronezh and South-Western fronts even fewer - 6.732 out of 32.063 POWs (refrence: Centeral deposit for collectin of historical documents (ЦХИДК) Ф. 1/п, оп. 9е, д.1, л. 18-19.)
As you see the POWs were counted before transportation to GULAG camps in the rear of the country.
Most likely considerable number of German soldiers were killed when attempting to surrender or when captured. How many I do not know, but hardly 500.000. And these cases would be practicaly impossible to distinguish from normal combat losses because they happened during or immidiatly after fighting and in the samee area. It is more like criminal act in war time if these killings are done delibiratly.
The accumulated number of registere Axis (not only Germans) POW was as follows:
end 1941 - 9.000 ; 19/Nov/1942 - 19.782 ; 15/Feb/1943 - 291.856 POWs.
Out of these 291.856, 171.774 POW died (all causes), i.e. 59%.
As Chevan already said, the German POWs death rate was similar to the death rate of Soviet ones, but in the course of the the whole period 1939 - 1956 it was only about 16%.
Thanks for that information.
Beria’s order is nearly a month after the German surrender at Stalingrad. About 90,000 - 95,000 (91,000 seems to be most commonly cited figurre) were captured, with about 42,000 after the surrender and the rest during the campaign. It seems that 78,500 were left by March 1, or at least by the time the order was implemented which could be much later. It’s not clear to me whether 78,500 were actually relocated to the camps as the rest of the quote seems to deal with the regions where various components of POW’s came from. Can you get a definite figure of Stalingrad POW’s who actually reached the permanent camps?
As you see the POWs were counted before transportation to GULAG camps in the rear of the country.
My understanding was that POW’s normally went to GUPVI (Main Administration for Prisoners of War and Internees) camps rather than GULAG (Main Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies) until the end of the war. Although each administration reported to the NKVD they operated quite separate administrations and for different purposes. I understand that after the war as part of the labour reparations the POW’s generally moved across to the GULAG camps
The accumulated number of registere Axis (not only Germans) POW was as follows:
end 1941 - 9.000 ; 19/Nov/1942 - 19.782 ; 15/Feb/1943 - 291.856 POWs.
Out of these 291.856, 171.774 POW died (all causes), i.e. 59%.As Chevan already said, the German POWs death rate was similar to the death rate of Soviet ones, but in the course of the whole period 1939 - 1956 it was only about 16%.
Given the big difference between 59% to just after the Stalingrad surrender and 16% over the period 1939 (really 1941 given the small figures to that time that you mentioned earlier) - 56, I’m wondering if there is a statistical anomaly introduced by looking at the period 1939-56 instead of 1939 - 45 which was the period Soviet prisoners were held in Germany? In theory, time shouldn’t matter as we’re looking at a percentage derived from a total number less another number with no replacements during the period (i.e. it’s not like looking at death rates in a normal population where births have to be accounted for).
The figures suggest that survival rates improved dramatically at some stage after early 1943. On the figures you gave earlier for total Axis POW’s repatriated, 67% were German. If we take that as a general indicator, and without knowing the individual national proportions of Axis prisoners to February 1943, it suggests that of the 171,774 POW’s dead to that date, about 115,000 were German. You gave 400,000 total German deaths in Soviet custody in an earlier post, while Karner says, in round figures, 350,000. This means that the estimated 115,000 at a 59% death rate leaves 285,000 or 235,000 respectively to die at well below 16% to give that rate over the period 1939-45. As you’re a mathematician, could you work out how low the death rate has to be for the remaining 285,000 / 235,000 1943-56 to produce a flat 16%? It won’t be accurate as it assumes that everybody went home in 1956, but it might be a useful figure to have.
The drop in death rates could be attributed to improved administration as Chevan mentioned, and also to Stalin’s realisation that POW’s were a useful labour force and, unlike the Nazi camps, worth keeping alive rather than working to death. On that point, it might be useful to know when POW’s were transferred to the GULAG system in large numbers, and what the death rates were in GUPVI versus GULAG camps. Also, what were POW’s doing in GUPVI camps? Working or just imprisoned?
There may also be statistical anomalies caused by sudden surges in numbers of POW’s which were beyond the ability of the Soviets to handle, as seems to be the case with Stalingrad, and which happened with the Bataan Death March (although it wasn’t the only factor there) and with the US and French after the German surrender.
I guess I did not translate it clear enough, the number 27.295 POWs is the number thsat was loaded on the trains. The first trains reached camps app. 4th of March, the last ones app. 13th of March. Many POW died on the trains (I case of one camp 1.526 out of 8.007)
But this all does not matter for our particular discussion. The question was if the POW were counted only in the camps. It is clearly seen from the documents that they were counted before. For example there is info that 171.774 dies. I just left it out before, but the next sentence was this one: [INDENT]“out of these171.774, 75.600 died in the camps, 29.006 during transport, 31.648 in the admitance points, 33.275 in the hospitals, 5.849 in the active units before handling over to the admitance points, 2.245 during the clearence procedure in the POW camps. (ЦХИДК, Ф. 1/п, 01е, д. 15а, л.32-33.)”
[/INDENT]
You see that the number of dead POW and their death is clearly visible in the internal documents of NKVD. And it is visible during all the stages from the army units and to the POW camps. Abviously the presision of it is probably lowest when active army units are concerned.
My understanding was that POW’s normally went to GUPVI (Main Administration for Prisoners of War and Internees) camps rather than GULAG (Main Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies) until the end of the war. Although each administration reported to the NKVD they operated quite separate administrations and for different purposes. I understand that after the war as part of the labour reparations the POW’s generally moved across to the GULAG camps
It is right. Not GULAG, but GUPVI.
The POWs always belonged to GUPVI system, even if they were working in the same area with GULAG inmates or free employed workers.
Given the big difference between 59% to just after the Stalingrad surrender and 16% over the period 1939 (really 1941 given the small figures to that time that you mentioned earlier) - 56, I’m wondering if there is a statistical anomaly introduced by looking at the period 1939-56 instead of 1939 - 45 which was the period Soviet prisoners were held in Germany? In theory, time shouldn’t matter as we’re looking at a percentage derived from a total number less another number with no replacements during the period (i.e. it’s not like looking at death rates in a normal population where births have to be accounted for).
We are looking at the total dead versus total taken POW. Time does not matter in this case. It would matter if we wanted to show the the development of the death rate over time (which I do not want to do in detail in this thread).
In fact speaking of time, considering that in average a german POW spent a bit longer time in captivity, it would make German POW death rate a bit lower if we substruct natural deaths from the total number of deaths (the natural death rate is between 1% and 2% per year).
In short the death rate of German POW was high until mid 1943, then there was improvement. Situation worsened in 1946 due to the famin that struck the country, but this did not have much impact and, ironicaly, even speeded up the release of the POWs to Germany.
The difference between Germany and USSR in handling the POWs was that German POWs suffered hight death rate when USSR was much weakened and had limited suplies for it’s own people, whereas Seoviet POWs suffered the highest death rate when Germany was the strongest and with food available.
Here is the quote from the official circular of the economical department of the German high comand in February 1942:
[INDENT]“The present economical strains would not appear if we whould have used soviet POW in appropriate manner. We had 3,9 million POW (my comment: this for sure includes civilians arrested on the status of POW). Now we have only 1,1 million left. Only in December 1941 half a million died.”[/INDENT]
The figures suggest that survival rates improved dramatically at some stage after early 1943. On the figures you gave earlier for total Axis POW’s repatriated, 67% were German. If we take that as a general indicator, and without knowing the individual national proportions of Axis prisoners to February 1943, it suggests that of the 171,774 POW’s dead to that date, about 115,000 were German. You gave 400,000 total German deaths in Soviet custody in an earlier post, while Karner says, in round figures, 350,000. This means that the estimated 115,000 at a 59% death rate leaves 285,000 or 235,000 respectively to die at well below 16% to give that rate over the period 1939-45. As you’re a mathematician, could you work out how low the death rate has to be for the remaining 285,000 / 235,000 1943-56 to produce a flat 16%? It won’t be accurate as it assumes that everybody went home in 1956, but it might be a useful figure to have.
See above my view on the development of the death rate over time.
The drop in death rates could be attributed to improved administration as Chevan mentioned, and also to Stalin’s realisation that POW’s were a useful labour force and, unlike the Nazi camps, worth keeping alive rather than working to death. On that point, it might be useful to know when POW’s were transferred to the GULAG system in large numbers, and what the death rates were in GUPVI versus GULAG camps. Also, what were POW’s doing in GUPVI camps? Working or just imprisoned?
The reasons for improving death rate as I see it: POW are a working asset, no dedicated policy for eliminating the enemy population, improved economy, peace time.
POWs were doing different things form working in the mines and building roads to repearing health in the special reabilitation camps. They even got some money for their work, but I guess it was after 1945. Thier impact on the after war recovery was substential.
The death rate in GULAG: I have no number at hand. I think they were similar for after 1945 period, because the food rations were set to a similar level (the officers abviously had it better).
There may also be statistical anomalies caused by sudden surges in numbers of POW’s which were beyond the ability of the Soviets to handle, as seems to be the case with Stalingrad, and which happened with the Bataan Death March (although it wasn’t the only factor there) and with the US and French after the German surrender.
As I showed in Stalingrad most of the POW died either during the operation, immidiatly after of during several months after transfer to camps. All this is recorded in different NKVD reports and therefor can be tracted with reasonable degree of accuracy.
Can we agree on anything in here?
Can we say:
[ul]
[li]Soviet POW death rate in the hands of Germans: ~60%
[/li][li]German POW death rate in the hands of USSR: ~16 - ~30%
[/li][/ul]
Affirmative.
I know that makes me sound like a Yank, but the stupid forum rules need at least five characters to allow a post. All I wanted to say was:
Yes
Great Rising Sun*!!! I can not beleive we actually managed to agree on something!
So the conclusion is that the soviets did NOT repaid many time in terms od POW death rate. Right?
Whould you care to compare the number of rapes in this thread, your honour?